More than 50 registered nurses working at Haverhill’s Merrimack Valley Hospital held a rally in front of Haverhill Stadium on April 5
. The nurses, all of whom are members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association/National Nurses United, have been discouraged and alarmed in recent months by the risks
they say they see to patients as a result of an increase in the number of patients being assigned to one nurse at any given time, according to a statement released by the nurses’ union. The nurses say the problem has increased since Cerberus-Steward Health Care, the hospital’s owner, closed a medical/surgical floor several months ago and combined it with its telemetry floor.